#2 Oct 5 - Gender ＆ Translation
#2 Sept 21 Brown, Hilary. “Women and classical translation in the eighteenth century.” German Life and Letters 59, no. 3 (July 2006): 344-360. Brown, Sarah Annes. “Women translators.” In The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English: Volume 3: 1660-1790, 111-120. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2005.
6 意見:
It is interesting, though not surprising, that women were generally barred from learning Latin in 18th century Germany. Of course, class and wealth made almost anything possible, but perhaps still embarrassing as evidenced by Hilary Brown's article. Much has changed since the 18th century (certainly not enough), and today preventing individuals from reaching their potential for any reason seems deeply antisocial to many of us. The most should be made of everyone, not just for their own sake, but also for the sake of all of us.
I am curious about women's access to official/written languages in traditional China. Also, at the end of the 19th century, along with the rise of the new woman, related publications and the translation boom in Shanghai, were there women also skilled in foreign languages and translating?. This might make an interesting topic for a paper, but I wonder if there is enough information available that directly relates to translation.
What was happening in Taiwan in terms of translation at the end of the 19th century? Surely women were learning Japanese and had access to their own native languages, but was there an attitude that translation was “man's work?”
Pym has written much about the need for more scholarly work in the field of translation history. Research that focuses on the contexts in which translation happens, rather than on the translations themselves, seems like it would be a good choice for a thesis topic. Is this option available here at Shida?
比較這兩篇文章裡介紹的英德女翻譯家，似乎文章裡介紹的三名德國女譯者都比較保守、謙遜，不敢突出自己，而是謙稱自己是丈夫的助手或只是mediators。這三位譯者都是翻譯古拉丁文或希臘文，一般被視為男性的領域（domain），而她們的翻譯也避開了像悲劇或史詩這些較“高貴的文類”(elevated genre)。此外，譯者也極力要證明自己的女性特質，以及她們沒有因為翻譯忽略了家庭。相較下，中國清代的閨秀作家在寫詩、或是彈詞時，也都聲明是“繡餘之作”。看來，雖然有地域的差別，女性寫作所面臨的困境，似乎在中西並沒有多大的差異。另外，德國的譯者極力講究譯作要符合道德層面，甚至加以改寫，似乎也和盛清時完顏惲珠編的女詩人選（《國朝閨秀正始集》）的原則相似：道德至上！（話雖這麼說，德國的Reiske還是翻譯了一本很羅曼史的小說！）
對英國女翻譯家的介紹則較有變化，有來自貴族階層的婦女，也有較下層的教職人員、商人或店主人之女。文中提到上層階級的婦女不喜歡出版她們的譯作，認為那是一種侵犯──德國的女譯者似乎也有相同的想法。但她們的作品仍會流傳，而且有的女譯者也會聲明是以女性讀者為對象。（有趣的是，清代的彈詞也多以手抄本的型式在婦女之間流傳）。其中有的女譯者很謙遜，但也有較具“戰鬥”精神者，如Aphra Behn就很察覺到翻譯的“性別議題”。但大體上來說，女譯者的作品仍多半集中在“輕文類”（詩、小說、傳記、回憶錄）──似乎鮮少有嘗試史詩或悲劇者。
另外，值得探討的議題是，這些受教育的女性大多和家庭背景有關；她們的學習、創作或譯作多有男性親友（父親、丈夫）的支持；其作品也有不少是由他們刊行的。但母親在其中扮演的角色呢？（有一說認為清代不排斥閨秀教育的目的之一是：她們出嫁後，能夠成為“課子訓讀”的良母）還有，她們是否能夠和其他受教育的女性一起切磋、討論（如《紅樓夢》裡的女性一樣）？
P.S. Craig posed an interesting question about the history of translation at the end of 19th century in Taiwan! During the Japanese Colonization Era, there must be a lot of translation going on in the government administration. Yet not much is known about the translation of literature in that period, I guess. Only until recently was the Taiwanese literature during the Japanese Colonization uncovered. Not to mention translation literature!
Sophia Yee
Fame is such a funny thing. Men get famous, it’s something worth celebration. Women become famous, it’s nothing, or perhaps it’s worse than nothing: that’s a no-no cultural or genderic taboo. When it comes to translation, women are encouraged to translate popular French novels, memoirs, plays…., but not classical literature. Even if they do master Latin or Greek, even if they do translate a bit of Homer, a bit of Ovid,…,etc., their work are not welcome in print. Or they themselves refuse to have their work published. Publication is somehow linked to unchastity during 17-18 century German and England. Thus how we see Reiske, a woman translator who masters Latin and Greek, styles herself in the prefaces as her husband helpmate, seeing the translator’s role as merely a mediator. Gottsched, who also knows Greek and Latin, but she translates only seven short poems in the field of classical literature. It is a great contrast when the fact she has translated or co-translated nearly 50 copies of French or English light genres such as novel is taking account of. Perhaps she is afraid of fame, which certainly attracts criticism of all sorts and eventually affects her chastity?
(Behn is unique case in this regard.)
I felt deeply sorry for these women translators, for their difficult situations, for their forced waste of talents-- Greek or Latin is such a difficult language to learn! What was the situation in 17-18 century China? I can’t image. One thing that we can be sure is that Chinese women translators, if they exist, are probably afraid of trying their hands in classic literature, in attracting fame. Our 文學祖師奶奶張愛玲’s words reverberate: 任是鐵錚錚的名字，掛在千萬人的嘴唇上，也在呼吸的水蒸氣裡生了銹.
The woman translators discussed in both articles were from 17th to 18th century. Though women started to translate in an even earlier age, this was the time when more women in the west participated in the translation work. Chinese woman translators, however, started to translate one century later than their western counterparts. Both shared some similarities. First, both such privileged women were supported by their enlightened fathers or husbands. Second, for women of both sides, domesticity is of the same importance, sometimes even more important, for a woman’s literary or scholarly life. In the west, women’s publication will be regarded as a kind of “sexual self-display,” because women’s main jobs would be “the daily care” given to her family. If women did not do their duties in a family, they will be seen as negligent and thus unchaste to their family. However, I found that western woman translators were more conservative and modest when Reiske asserted that she translated on the orders of her husband. Chinese woman translators, while they were starting to translate in the 19th century and were inevitable of male influence, demonstrated more subjectivity in their translation work. Is this because they were translating in a time of revolution?
正如Lori Chamberlain所提，許多翻譯理論往往將「翻譯」比喻成柔弱的、屈服(於原文)的女性角色，那麼女性譯者在歷史上又扮演什麼角色?她們是否只是受制於原文男性的宰制?Sarah Annes Brown提供我們歷史的視角，檢視十七世紀和十八世紀的女性譯者之背景和她門扮演的角色，甚至是這些女性譯者帶來的影響。不論女性從事翻譯的背後目的是賺錢還是娛樂自己(和其他女性讀者)，十七世紀早期的女性譯者態度似乎較為保守，這些女性譯者多半出身具有一定社經地位的家庭，熟習拉丁文或義大利文，不過，Annes Brown也提到，這個時期的女性翻譯時，她們會為了道德的因素而修改原文，這讓我覺得有點有趣，她們的作法究竟是符合chasty(不譯不合禮教不合的原文)還是betrayed(刪去不合禮教的原文)?這種做法究竟是給了這個時期的女性譯者更多的自由，還是給予她們更多的箝制?如果是為了符合父權社會的標準而修改原文，這種背叛原文的行為其實更凸顯了當時女性譯者的保守，如果是因為不這麼做就無法出版譯本，那麼讓我好奇的是，會有多少女性譯者假借男人之名出版譯作?時間往後推移，十七世紀晚期的女性譯者態度較為開放，像是Aphra Behn，她雖然在譯本的序裡謙虛表示譯文的缺失是因為身為女性的原因，但是她也敢直言批評Fontellene作品裡對女性的描寫流於父權，讓作品裡的女性「說了太多愚蠢的話」，具體而微地展現了Behn的個性。Eliza Haywood是另一個讓人矚目的女性譯者，她出生於十七世紀晚期，活耀於十八世紀，她的譯文雖然以「放肆」(licentiousness)聞名，但是這是否代表了十八世紀的人對於女性譯者的譯文有更大的包容度，不再以符合道德為標準？上流階層的女性譯者為了興趣或熱情從事翻譯，地位不如上流階層的女性譯者為了生活而從事翻譯，不管目的為何，這些女性譯者的作品確實為後世保留了一些經典之作，在男性宰制的文壇裡，發出自己的光芒。
I am so NOT astonished to learn of (again?) the omnipresent gender boundaries that had persecuted women translators over two centuries ago, at a time called “the Enlightenment.” What an irony! The ancient patriarchy appeared sugarcoated under the banner of morality and decorum. Even the best women translators were always carefully occupied with hiding their linguistic capabilities and scholarly ties with the classical literature. A female translator is deemed “good” not because of her excellent efforts but because, as Reiske had exemplified, of being a “good helpmate” of her husband (the masculine hegemony). All in all, translations by women at the time were at best the by-product of male dominance. Luckily, the figures we read about in these two articles did not passively succumb to the biased limitations against their work. Instead, they made the best of the education they received (from their fathers, brothers or husbands), trying to combine women’s erudition (the taboo at the time?) with domesticity (womanliness?) as walking a “gendered” tightrope.
When we turn our eyes back on the modern times, women translators are found by some critics to tend to take more compassion on female characters in the novel than their male counterparts do. Female translators appear to adopt more euphemism in expression than male translators. Why? Because based on register theory, the difference is mainly attributed to their different role relationships with the participants in social activities during the process of gender construction. That means although modern women translators no longer need to justify whatever text they intend to work on, there still remains a gendered framework that manipulates the inner activities during translating. Gender dominance seems like an invisible thread confining women translators throughout hundreds of years, only in different forms. Is it true?
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